Thursday, January 5, 2017

Dual-Wielding Weapons in 13th Age

13th Age doesn't really support dual-wielding combat (fighting with a weapon in each hand) unless A: you have a specific power/trait/ability that is designed for it, or B: you roll a 2. This has never quite felt "right" to me, so I worked up a new dual-wield basic attack option as follows:

Melee Basic Attack (two weapons)
Treat this as a normal melee basic attack but with a -2 penalty to hit. If the attacker rolls 16+ and hits, then in addition to the normal damage dealt with his primary weapon (modified by level/tier, of course) s/he may add one damage die of the off-weapon type. So for example: the attacker is wielding a long sword (1D8) and dagger (1D4). If he is level 3 and gets a 16 or better hit in (with the -2 penalty), then he may roll 3D8+1D4 damage. The bonus damage for the off-hand weapon jumps to two dice for Champion Tier and 3 dice for Epic Tier.

This combat attack can only be executed with one-handed weapons, and the off-hand weapon must be light (one damage die less) than the main-hand weapon, or two light weapons.

Adventurer Feat: you no longer take a -2 penalty to the attack.

Champion Feat: you may now wield two one-handed weapons of light or medium size in any combination (i.e. two long swords, for example).

Epic Tier Feat: you now deal off-hand damage if you roll 11+ and hit the target.

The important thing is that in a million years, when the brain-worms of Arcturus IX have annihilated us throughout the galaxy, there will be no surviving recordings of blogs to be found by the cephalopods that evolve to replace us. In this way will their civilization advance and prosper.